John Irwin, a Liberal Democrat activist who helped save the Wheatsheaf pub in Tooting Bec.
Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer

Fans of the great British boozer should be raising a glass to Wandsworth council. The local authority stepped in last week to throw a protective arm around the borough’s licensed premises, a move real-ale lobby group Camra has urged other councils to follow in order to slow the closure of pubs for redevelopment.

The number of pubs across the UK has been in decline for years, and while the pace of their disappearance has slowed – from 27 a week earlier this year to 21, according to Camra – the direction of travel has not changed.

The trend has been attributed to factors including pub prices comparing unfavourably with the cost of alcohol in supermarkets and changing cultural habits, with more people entertaining and sharing a tipple at home.

“I’ve sold more pubs for multimillion sums this year than I ever have,” says James Davies, head of pubs at Fleurets. “The demand for property in London is exceptionally strong. The market will pay more than perhaps it’s worth because they want the asset so much.”

Faced with this trend, Wandsworth council in south London took the unprecedented step of using a special piece of planning law – an “article 4 direction” – to protect its pubs. The provision, usually employed in regard to individual developments, means that owners of 120 bars and pubs in the borough will have to seek council permission before changing the building’s use or knocking it down. Wandsworth said the sites had been chosen for their “historic or architectural value or because they make a positive contribution to their community”.

Councils across the UK, some of which have already used article 4 in individual cases, are understood to be keeping an eye on what happens in Wandsworth. The move was inspired partly by a high-profile campaign to save The Wheatsheaf, a redbrick Victorian watering hole in Tooting Bec that was due to be sold to Tesco.

The Wheatsheaf pub in Tooting Bec. Demand for property such as this is extremely high in London. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer

Jon Irwin, a Liberal Democrat activist who started a petition to save the Wheatsheaf, puts Wandsworth’s decision to wield article 4 powers down to councillors’ recognition of the strength of local opinion.

“We set up the petition and it just went nuts,” he said. “It was the groundswell of opinion that did it. They were left with no illusions that this is what people wanted. No politician in their right mind was going to let it close.”

Methods used elsewhere to protect pubs have had mixed results. Many communities sought to have their local declared an asset of community value (ACV), which triggers a six-month moratorium on the building being sold, giving residents a chance to raise enough cash to table their own bid for it.

Some 1,200 pubs around the UK now have ACV status, and some government cash, albeit a modest £1.5m in total, is available to communities in the form of a pub loan fund administered by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

But ACV status doesn’t help much when communities can’t raise enough money to put in a competitive offer. And a cash shortfall among community bidders is much more likely in areas with high property prices, where redevelopments are consequently more likely.

“It has become evident that ACV listings are not enough to give pubs the protection they deserve from closure, or acquisition and demolition, or redevelopment by investors,” said Colin Valentine, chairman of Camra. “Communities are not getting enough of a say in the process when the pubs they treasure are threatened by closure or change of use.”

“The concern I have is not the legislative framework but the inconsistency of application by officers at local level,” Harrison said. “In our case, the officers ignored the pub’s ACV status and its heritage as a listed building in a conservation area.

“The main reason so many are closing is that the value of the building and the land for housing is much more than its value as a pub, especially in the south-east. But if we allow pubs to be lost unnecessarily, we undermine our local communities.”

The Wheatsheaf pub, which was due to redeveloped into a Tesco food store. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer

“From the conversations we have had with other community groups trying to save their pubs this [problem with ACVs] is not unique. We have had to fight a lot harder than we should have done to avoid losing an important local asset. I think it [use of article 4] may have been helpful to us, because anything that makes it harder to turn pubs into houses is good.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the British Beer and Pubs Association, which represents the very pub companies which are often behind the sale and closure of premises for redevelopment, doesn’t think councils should copy Wandsworth’s blanket approach.

“It is right that there are laws to protect pubs that are of real value, to local people and local communities,” said a spokesman. “This can be done by using the laws that make a pub an asset of community value.

“However, as each pub’s situation is different, this should be looked at on a case-by-case basis. We are against blanket measures, as every case should be judged on its own merits. In some cases a pub might not be viable. A measure like this then makes it very difficult to sell, and restricts investment, which has a huge financial impact.”

Some councils, keen not to obstruct much-needed developments for the sake of pubs that can’t be saved, have opted to apply bespoke measures rather than powers such as article 4.

In 2012, Cambridge city council issued a set of guidelines aimed at stemming a wave of pub closures as property owners cashed in on the city’s high property prices.

Rather than seeking a blanket measure requiring planning approval, the council drew up its own policies, aimed at ensuring that developments could go ahead only once it had become clear that a pub was not viable. This includes a requirement that the property be on the market for at least 12 months as a public house, and that it has not otherwise been shown to be of particular value to the community.

While Cambridge council can still wheel out the big guns of article 4 in special cases, coming up with its own approach allows it to tailor policy to the local situation.

Whatever the measures at the disposal of councils, the key component is still concerted and passionate local campaigns led by committed people. After the success of the campaign to save The Wheatsheaf, Irwin wants groups who fear the loss of a much-loved tavern to follow suit, whether through ACVs, article 4 or other means.

“We let developers do what they want at our peril. The door is ajar, the example is there. Why not copy it?”